Future Climber

On Alicia and my hike around the Solitude/Twin Lakes Loop, Quinn found some boulders to climb on and it turns out he's a natural. He was complaining about being tired but we knew he was faking it when we couldn't get him to stop climbing the rocks. He must have gone up and down each one a dozen times on each side. I took these pictures (while still spotting him of course) so that someday when he's a pro-climber, sponsored by all the coolest outdoor/gear brands and they're making cool videos of him climbing famous routes all over the world, he can show them off as proof and say he's been climbing since he was four. Seriously, I think he has better technique than I do. Someone get this kid some climbing shoes! (...and his brother too, but sadly he wasn't there that day.)

Quinn wanted to jump off but the boulder was taller than me so he asked me, "If I jump off and get hurt, then will you catch me?"

The next boulder we found was better because he could get down himself.

What to do with all those crappy phone pictures

I don't have a fancy phone. I have an old second hand flip phone that takes crappy pictures. The quality of the pictures is only getting worse these days... along with the subject matter, which 7 out of 10 times is a cat. In my spare time today I made these lame little collages of some pictures from the past 3 years. Because really what else is there to do with crappy phone pictures?

Idaho in September

I spent the weekend in Idaho visiting my sister and her family. It was a gorgeous weekend up north in Eastern Idaho and we got to do a lot in just a few days. One of the things we did was Apple Picking and Cider Pressing! I go up a lot for berry picking but always seem to miss out on the apple season. I was a little early this year but there were a few trees ready to be picked.

The school orchards have over 200 varieties of apples in them, I can't remember the exact number.

The trees are pruned perfectly for easily climbing up and reaching all the apples and obviously Kjirsten and I had fun climbing them and taking pictures.

Just as I took this picture Kris hit Kjirsten in the head with an apple...

After we picked all the apples we wanted, Jerry let us eat some of the strawberries in the gardens. We were going to pick them and throw them in with the apples to make strawberry-apple juice, but we just ended up eating them all.

Then we rode the Gator back through the orchards to the apple press.

But something happened to the Gator...

...Josh notices it... ...gets out to inspect...

...and finds we have a flat tire

Time to make cider- First we wash all the apples

Load them into the cannon

Watch morbidly as they get chopped to bits

Then hit the button and press all the juice out of them

Siphon it off into pitchers and jugs and you're done.

We kept the apples varieties separate for the most part so we could taste (and see) the difference in the juice.

Harrison really loves his apple juice...

Then after you're all done you can play with all the dry pressed apple pulp like it's play-doh and make creepy looking snowmen and shrunken heads and gross stuff like that.

Idaho this weekend also meant celebrating Kris's birthday.

I made him 2 cheesecakes. M&M and Key Lime (with the juice Jailynn brought home from their trip to the Florida Keys this summer.)

Grandma sent him a box of something, so while the cheesecakes baked and his parents took him shopping, Kjirsten and Katrina and I decorated the box for him. I don't know how to draw an airplane so it got modified into a flying fish at the last minute.

Then for the rest of the day we hung out in the backyard. We picked a few more apples in the yard and Kjirsten drove me and Josh around with the riding mower.

When no one wants to watch Josh while we pick apples, we just put him in the chicken coop with the bunny...

I couldn't tell if he liked it or hated it.